In 1981 we were all introduced to archaeologist and hero Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Last Ark. Unless of course you lived in Czechoslovakia or Hungary – they didn’t see the film until 1985; a year after the sequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released everywhere else.The Temple of Doom was not released in Czechoslovakia or Hungary at all.Then in 1992 Czechoslovakia finally saw the release of the third film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – three years after its release everywhere else in the world, except once again Hungary missed out. This is a shame, because Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was arguably the best film in the series. This was largely thanks to the wonderful mix of a grand quest to find the holy grail that was combined with the troubled relationship Indiana had with his father, played by Sean Connery.But the wait Czechoslovakia went through is nothing compared with the development of the fourth film in the series: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After numerous scripts, going sixty million dollars over budget and wondering whether Harrison Ford would return to play the title role, at last in the year 2008 we see the results of film that’s been in the works since the early 90s. Pity it sucks.

Things look ominous from the beginning when the first shot is that of a computer generated gopher hill. When a filmmaker (in this case, director Steven Spielberg) feels the need to spend time and money rendering out a pile of dirt for an unimportant shot, you really have to question whether if they know what they’re doing. Following on from this, the first scene consists of four teens hooning alongside a military convoy blasting out Elvis Presley rock ‘n’ roll. Other than that, nothing else happens. This is the second foreshadowing of a great flaw in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: scenes which serve absolutely no point.

The scene which epitomises both these flaws oh so well is the scene in which Indiana Jones escapes a nuclear blast by hiding inside a lead lined refrigerator. The term “facepalm” only begins to describe my reaction. Sure, Indiana Jones is a movie hero, but the scene goes on to undermine itself by showing the fridge violently crashing into the ground looking incredibly burnt. The film should have ended there with Indiana Jones having had his neck broken whilst being burnt do death. I will admit that the subsequent low angle shot of Indiana Jones standing tall in the foreground while the mushroom cloud blazes is impressive – but that still doesn’t make the scene any more relevant or believable, even in a film like this. And this isn’t the first time that the film makes up its own rules of physics either.

There’s this wonderful back story about the development of final climatic scene of the first Back to the Future film. At one point the films climax was to have Marty McFly drive the Dolorean/time machine through a nuclear explosion at a military testing facility in order to generate enough power for the time machine to send him back to his own time. When the filmmakers realised that such a scene would be impractical, difficult and expensive to create, they conceived another ending which saw the power coming from a lighting strike. Anyone who has seen the film will know just how well this tied into the rest of the film and provided and an exciting ending to a great film. Sadly, such imagination and sensibility is nowhere to be found in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Unfortunately, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a textbook example of “Matrix-sequel-syndrome.” This is where a filmmaker had previously created a magnificent piece of cinema that was full of special effects – but they were only used when them was important to have an effect in there. Then in the sequels the filmmaker has an army of 3D special effects artists at their disposal and they go silly with making effects that don’t actually mean anything and the effect loses all impact. It was William Owen (aka: the dude I saw the film with) who said it best: “I preferred it when they couldn’t do that - because then they didn’t do that.”But there problems with this film are rooted deeper than that. At a guess, I’d say we’re about half an hour in the two hour film before we find the fabled crystal skull of the title. Then for the rest of the film it becomes a quest to return the skull to an ancient city where it was taken from. Now this is an interesting twist on the treasure hunting genre, where the legendary item is usually the end goal of the of the adventure. (See: National Treasure, The Librarian, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Last Crusade etc etc) The returning item storyline can work – and has in films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings, but it doesn’t work here. When we find the crystal skull the film undermines itself in two ways. Firstly, the skull looks like crap. Or more precisely, it looks like a moulded piece of plastic stuffed with scrunched up tin foil. The film was shot entirely on digital – and I can’t help but feel that had Kingdom of the Crystal Skull been shot on film, the props would have looked a lot better than they do. The second problem with finding the skull so soon is that it removes all sense of anticipation because the new destination is so vague. Apparently whoever returns the skull will receive all of its powers – but because the destination is so vague we have no reason to be excited about this. In creating a mystery there’s a fine line to tread between withholding information and giving the audience enough to be interested. This film fails at this.

That said, the film isn’t completely devoid of excitement. While the numerous chase sequences are overlong, they are also busy and enjoyable. But there’s a standout scene in which Indiana Jones and Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) are exploring a crypt. It’s a pretty tense scene thanks to the slow pacing, low lighting and omnipresent sense of dread – but best of all is the presence of Mutt. Usually a cool 50s rebel, Mutt is scared stiff while he follows behind Indiana. His own fear amplifies our own and he voices our own nervousness. The whole scene is pretty gripping. Sadly, whenever a well executed scene appears, something horrible usually happens.

At one point we’re reunited with Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) from Raiders of the Lost Ark and there’s a great scene where Indiana and Marion argue and yell about their past relationship which segues into a grand action sequence. It’s great because as we all know, domestic disputes plus action scenes equals win. (See: The Last Crusade and The Incredibles.) And despite the horrible and unconvincing CG background in the ensuing action scene, the sword play, speeding trucks and mounted machine guns make for a thrilling ride. That is, until the monkeys come and save the day. I’m not fucking kidding.

It’s at moments like these that the film suffers from another problem I’ll call Peter Jackson’s King Kong syndrome. This is where action scenes run overlong and outstay their welcome. I mean, the lobby scene in The Matrix went for a measly three minutes long and its fucking legendary. But while the action sequences are too long, the rest of the film is too short. There’s a useful adage in script writing that says: “get into a scene as late as possible and get out as quickly as possible.” Kingdom of the Crystal takes this useful tip and then takes it too far. The film starts with Indiana Jones in the boot of car – but we never learn of how was originally kidnapped. Later on we see Indiana on board a train with Mutt trying to talk to him as the train pulls away. The next shot has Mutt and Indiana at a bar – with no explanation as to how Indiana got off a moving train. The film constantly cuts scenes short for the sake of hurrying things along when it would have been much more interesting to see things play out.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is messy and misdirected, but I suppose that it is watchable in a bad action movie kind of way. But there’s so many other films (such as the ones mentioned throughout this review) that you could be watching instead. If you want an adventure with a silly science fiction twist, go play Uncharted. If you want a genuinely exciting treasure hunting film, go watch National Treasure. But unless you just want to have fun picking apart the film and complaining about its numerous flaws, there’s much better things you could be doing.